He married three times and fathered four children. When he died in 1979, aged 91, he left $250,000 to each of his surviving siblings and $10,000 to each of his nieces and nephews. Most of Conrad's assets were bequeathed to the Roman Catholic Church and to fund humanitarian prizes. His children and other descendants were disinherited from his will.

However, his son Barron successfully contested the will in 1988, thereby transforming his net worth to more than $335m. Barron's son Rick has made a fortune in property in his own right and his net worth is now estimated at 220m.

He has four children, of whom daughters Nicky and Paris are the bestknown. They first came to public attention in 2000 in a Vanity Fair profile. As well as inheriting an estimated 22m, Paris has made tens of millions of dollars from a media career, including appearing in the television show The Simple Life, pop singing, product endorsement and personal appearances.

She is perhaps best known, however, for '1 Night in Paris', a three-year-old sex tape of her with her then boyfriend, released in 2003. She has subsequently hit the headlines for making racist comments that were caught on film and, most recently, for being jailed in California after a string of driving offences.